“When we first kicked off planning efforts for Carequality in 2014, we knew it was going to be big,” said Sequoia Project President Mariann Yeager. “We had many of the biggest names in healthcare – including healthcare providers, technology vendors, pharmacies and others – committing to making Carequality work and implementing the framework once it was completed.”

Throughout the month of October 2017, healthcare organizations shared more than 1.7 million documents using the interoperability framework. This reflects a marked increase in the rate of exchange – two million documents were exchanged in total during Carequality’s first year. Now, the framework facilities nearly that many exchanges each month.

“With today’s revelation about the rapid increase and scale of Carequality’s current operations, we’re delighted,” said Yeager. “We’re proud to have the opportunity to work with each and every Carequality participating network and to celebrate their groundbreaking work to interconnect networks across the nation. The healthcare industry and government partners banded together to make Carequality a reality, and we’re now seeing the fruits of that labor.”

More than half a dozen Carequality implementers are expected to go-live with the framework in the first quarter of 2018.

“Carequality’s success stems from the core principles of inclusivity and openness we laid out during early planning meetings,” said Carequality Vice President Dave Cassel, “We brought together competing vendors, providers large and small, HIEs, government agencies, pharmacies, and other types of healthcare organizations, allowing everyone to be heard.”

“Open conversation and debate was encouraged, and we embraced transparency and openness in all processes,” continued Cassel. “As a result, we created a national interoperability framework that works, nationwide.”

Initiatives such as Carequality and Commonwell have helped to encourage widespread standardization across HIE organizations and hospitals to improve interoperability and health data exchange.

“Our implementing networks continue to attract more and more hospitals, practices, and medical groups,” said Cassel. “Additional networks are coming on line that connect payers, many more providers, and even patients themselves as direct participants in their care.”